Curious taxpayer supported CDC school mask comments

Ann Althouse

It just doesn’t sound straightforward: “we have deferred our guidance to the local jurisdictions.” That’s a very strange way to put words together — “deferred our guidance.” Does she mean to say “we defer to the local jurisdictions”? “Defer” — when used to mean to submit out of deference — is an intransitive verb. The transitive verb “defer” means to put off to a later date, and they are not putting off their guidance to a later date.

I know that may sound pedantic, but I’m relaying what I researched and figured out after I had the instinctive sense — as a native speaker of English — that something was off.